Intel to put 100 autonomous cars on the roads for testing

Intel is set to make real progress with autonomous driving and it’ll unleash a fleet of 100 vehicles in the real world for testing, to accelerate the development of its systems.

With the completion of the tender offer of Mobileye, Intel is poised to accelerate its autonomous driving business from car-to-cloud. Mobileye, an Intel Company, will start building a fleet of fully autonomous (level 4 SAE) vehicles for testing in the United States, Israel and Europe. The first vehicles will be deployed later this year, and the fleet will eventually scale to more than 100 automobiles.

“Building cars and testing them in real-world conditions provides immediate feedback and will accelerate delivery of technologies and solutions for highly and fully autonomous vehicles,” said Amnon Shashua, soon-to-be senior vice president of Intel Corporation and future CEO/CTO of Mobileye. “Geographic diversity is very important as different regions have very diverse driving styles as well as different road conditions and signage. Our goal is to develop autonomous vehicle technology that can be deployed anywhere, which means we need to test and train the vehicles in varying locations.”

The fleet will include multiple car brands and vehicle types to demonstrate the technology’s agnostic nature.

“Delivering 100 test cars very quickly will demonstrate how this hybrid system can be adapted to meet customer needs,” Shashua said. “Neither company could do this alone. Given resident skill-sets within the two companies, a standalone fleet of test vehicles is possible almost immediately.”

The test fleet will allow the hybrid solution based on Mobileye and Intel technology to be demonstrated to current and prospective customers in a real-world landscape, and also serve as a base to interact directly with regulators. It will also showcase novel concepts of mapping and safety validation, which are both geared toward scalability.